NOTIFICATION: Lost Season 3

Next season to start will be:

Lost
Season 3
Initial run: 04/10/2006 - 23/05/2007

Starring:

Matthew Fox	as	Jack Shephard
Evangeline Lilly	as	Kate Austen
Terry O'Quinn	as	John Locke
Josh Holloway	as	James "Sawyer" Ford
Naveen Andrews	as	Sayid Jarrah
Dominic Monaghan	as	Charlie Pace
Emilie de Ravin	as	Claire Littleton
Jorge Garcia	as	Hugo "Hurley" Reyes
Daniel Dae-Kim	as	Jin-Soo Kwon
Yunjin Kim	as	Sun-Hwa Kwon
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje	as	Eko Tunde
Henry Ian Cusick	as	Desmond Hume
Elizabeth Mitchell	as	Juliet Burke
Michael Emerson	as	Benjamin Linus
Rodrigo Santoro	as	Paulo
Kiele Sanchez	as	Nikki Fernandez

Pre-season buzz (quotes):

• "This year we're looking to make the show brighter, more vibrant. There's more emphasis on action, adventure and romance. The show won't be as dark, as internal. There will be more emphasis on character access, less on mythological access." - Carlton Cuse (speaking at an ABC party)
  
• "The first six episodes are going to be very high octane. The notion that we are ending a mini-season in six hours has ramped up our storytelling. [...] We will begin to learn more about the 'others' and who they are and what their society is like." - Carlton Cuse (from an interview with the Boston Globe)
• "In Season 3, the show moves geographically and spiritually to another place. We will be with The Others more. They will become more three-dimensional." - Michael Emerson (from an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
  

Pre-season buzz (from last season's finale):

Obviously last season's finale is the best source of clues about this season. Let's summarise what happened and what might happen next.

• We found out that the Others have a list of survivors they need, including Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley. Why do they need exactly these four? At the end of the season, they let Hurley go, meaning he will be forced to return to the camp with his tail between his legs. I think this will not be a nice situation for him.
• Meanwhile, Jack, Kate and Sawyer have been taken hostage by The Others. They promised Michael they wouldn't hurt them, but they haven't exactly proven themselves to be trustworthy in the past. Michael Emerson's character appears to be in charge of this group, and we see from the released cast list that this character's name is "Ben".
  
• John Locke's crisis of faith caused him to let the timer count down to zero. At this point he realised that it was real all along, causing him to admit "I was wrong" in a beautiful moment. This experience is likely to have a profound effect on John Locke. Additionally, it's not clear how the failsafe will have affected people who were in the hatch at the time.
  
• Penny appears to have found the island, and Desmond's promotion to a regular cast member means we will probably see more of Penny this season.
• Charlie and Claire are back together - but for how long...?
  
• Sayid arrived at the decoy village, and is somewhat stranded from the others, close to the statue, with Sun and Jin. How will they react when they find out what has occurred? How will everyone react?
• Michael has left the island with Walt, so I doubt we'll see him around much. People are probably going to be talking about his deception though!

In summary:

• Jack, Kate and Sawyer are in The Others' captivity, together with Ben.
• Hurley is on his way back to the beach to inform the others of what is going on.
• Sayid, Jin and Sun are at the decoy village.
• Desmond, Locke and Eko are in the hatch.
  
• Charlie and Claire are safe on the beach.
• Juliet, Nikki and Paolo have not been introduced yet, and so have an unknown location.
  

Pre-season buzz (statistical):

• I bought this season's DVD set last summer, almost a year ago now. I had intended to start watching it, but my drought period from TV (mainly due to not having a widescreen TV!) followed by lots of more important "watch-with-broadcast" shows such as 24, Damages and The Apprentice, meant that it got pushed all the way back to now.
  
• This season's premiere is titled "A Tale Of Two Cities". It is Jack-centric, just like the season 2 premiere "Man Of Science, Man Of Faith". It is confirmed that this episode takes place just one day after the season 2 finale "Live Together, Die Alone".
  
• This season contains 23 episodes, one less than season 2, which in turn had one less than season 1. The season finale is titled "Through The Looking Glass". This season takes place over the course of 23 days, so one episode equals one day on average (season 2 had a similar average of 0.96 days per episode, whereas season 1 was a massive 1.76 days per episode).
• This season introduces new regular cast members. Michael Emerson appeared toward the end of last season and was a great actor; I'm glad to see him back as a regular. Desmond Hume was also key last season and also a great actor. New to the cast are the mysterious names Juliet, Paulo and Nikki, all played by actors I've never heard of.
• Other characters from previous seasons who have been confirmed to return are "Mr Friendly", Danielle Rosseau and her daughter Alex, Rose and Bernard, "Mr Pickett" from last season's "Three Minutes", Ethan Rom (presumably only in flashbacks), Shannon & Boone (presumably only in flashbacks), Walt, and a variety of other flashback and non-flashback characters.
  
• This season features 3 Jack-centric episodes, 2 Kate-centric, 2 Sun-centric, 2 Locke-centric and 2 Desmond-centric. The new character Juliet also has 2 centric episodes, indicating she might be quite key. All the other main characters get 1 centric episode, including Nikki and Paulo, who feature together, indicating they might be connected in some way.